Somehow, in the blink of a crinkling eye, we’re a third of the way through the regular season. Some of the teams we think are the best in the country haven’t truly been tested yet — cough, Ohio State, cough — but we’re definitely learning a lot about teams that should be in contention for College Football Playoff come December.
Texas and Ohio State remain in the top spots for obvious reasons. Miami stays at No. 3 after it continued its run of dominance by beating a good USF team handily on the road. Utah, without starting quarterback Cam Rising, grinded out a win over Oklahoma State, a fellow Big 12 contender, jumping the Utes back up to the No. 4 seed as the Big 12 champion in my projected bracket. Then, BYU thrashed Kansas State late Saturday night, which knocked the Wildcats out of the top 12 entirely.
But the most interesting team in my projection this week is Tennessee, coming off a big win over Oklahoma in the Sooners’ highly anticipated SEC debut. The Vols might actually be the second-best team in the entire country right now, but because of CFP rules requiring the top four seeds to be conference champions, they’d slide down to No. 5, the top at-large spot. It’s a good thing to remember — that the No. 5 seed might end up being one of the most dangerous teams in the entire bracket.
Clemson deserves our attention moving forward, by the way. If anyone wrote the Tigers off completely after their Week 1 loss to Georgia, they might want to rethink it. Clemson may not be national championship-caliber good, but this is definitely a team capable of contending for an ACC title or, at the very least, a CFP at-large bid.
I’ve kept UNLV as my No. 12 seed because I think the undefeated Rebels remain well-positioned to land the automatic bid given to the highest-ranked Group of 5 champion (assuming they eventually win the Mountain West). Three G5 teams that picked up huge nonconference wins this season — Memphis, Northern Illinois and Toledo — all lost this past weekend. Now, there’s a long way to go until we can compare the various G5 champions with their complete resumes, but I’ll try my best to handicap it each week regardless.
A scheduling note: I’ll project the 12-team CFP each week for the rest of the season, and once the selection committee begins unveiling its rankings in November, I’ll analyze them each week as well.